15. Adrik
ADRIK
W ord was still getting out about my father. Too many powerful people would see his failing health as a window of opportunity. Controlling the narrative was too important to slack on, but it was wearing on me.
The stupid shit some people wanted to say.
The idiotic stories they’d speculate on and spread like fact.
While some of us were addressing leaders trying to make a power play on us, I asked a couple of others to focus on any threats that might suggest an enemy wanted to use our Pakhan’s decline as a diversion.
Sure, we were focusing on my father, but not so much that we’d be too distracted from handling business as usual.
Obsessing about how sweet Elena was when she came for me wasn’t business as usual.
Replaying the memory of how tight she’d felt wrapped around my fingers wasn’t supposed to be my business at all.
What did fall under “business” was meeting with members of the Konstantin bratva. Maksim and I handled that headache the morning after I’d fingered Elena.
“They can’t be a threat,” Maksim told me as we rode away from meeting with their leader. “They’re too small to take over anything.”
I stared him down. “I’d like to believe that. But they are an old and established faction. If they joined with other smaller Bratvas throughout the country…”
“There’s no point in playing the game of what if , Brother.”
Later that afternoon, I accompanied Lev on a visit at one of our warehouses near the border. The Garcia Cartel had always been a solid ally, but they were voicing concerns about the Hernandez Cartel that was branching further north out of Colombia and setting up outposts throughout Texas.
Come morning, I felt irritated and more stressed than ever.
I sat in my father’s chair, eyeing the wooden panels of the walls, pausing to follow the ornate lines of the ornamental crown molding. Real craftsmanship was due credit here. But it didn’t matter where I looked. It was his. His office. His role to lead.
Not mine.
I wasn’t in denial about my future, but I couldn’t understand when it would fit me.
A few light knocks sounded on the door. I closed my eyes, the chair back facing the open door. While I didn’t want any distractions today, any more fires to put out, I knew this wouldn’t be another episode of trouble in my lap.
I smelled her, that sweet, citrusy perfume of her shampoo.
I felt her presence, that warmth and helpfulness she exuded.
Without swiveling the chair to address Elena after her delicate knocks, I needed to fortify myself with the patience and control to see her.
This woman was trouble. She made me want her too damn much.
And her being here was trouble. I wanted her to land in my lap so I could vent some of my frustration. The allure of knowing I’d feel so much better afterward had me seriously debating whether I was a wise man or a stupid fool to deny myself from having this woman.
One push of my foot sent the chair spinning.
She stood there in another professionally proper white blouse, another plain skirt, stretchy and gray, molding to her hips.
Her light-blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, and she had the fuck-me glasses on that only emphasized the bright blue of her beautiful but worried eyes.
“Mr. Volkov?—”
“ What ?” I snapped.
What she called me shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. She couldn’t go back to that fucking formality. Not when my favorite bit of memory was replaying the sound of her saying my name as she got closer to coming in my hand.
“Adrik,” she corrected immediately, her cheeks blushing. “I have some things to report. To present.” She held up the laptop, as if she needed a prop to be confident enough in facing me. “About the matter you asked me to look into.”
I nodded. “Then show me.”
I was asking for trouble to invite her into my space. I was taking a huge risk to defy my rule for distance between us. But I would never turn down an employee’s offer of intel.
She entered the room, standing on the other side of the desk as she put the laptop down. Her phone tumbled out of her hand and she set it aside.
“We’ve been through this before,” I growled. “You can’t see the screen if you stay there. I can’t see it if you’re facing me.” I looked at the spare chair that she’d been claiming. It was pushed against the wall, but she understood the order.
She dragged it over and sat while she opened the laptop again. To my left, but with more than a few inches between us.
“Like I said before, I had concerns that these unnamed and unregistered shell companies are linked to a singular entity. Or person.”
I sighed, leaning back in my chair, elbow on the armrest, chin in hand.
Her melodic voice coasted over me, prompting me to focus on her, to be in the moment.
Nothing else could cut into my attention so long as I listened to her concise summary of the trails she’d been tracking.
She’d put in more than a little effort to identify who had originated these shell companies.
Using examples of interference with payments in the Bratva accounts, she guided me down the paths she explored to pick up more clues about who had what account with what institution.
And who the people were behind those locations.
I was all ears.
She didn’t ramble or go off on any tangents. When she spoke about her work, it represented her fervor in doing the job right the first time. She was passionate, if such a thing could be said about numbers and accounting work.
But as she explained and demonstrated what she’d found, I struggled to keep the naughty memories of her at bay.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, admiring the angelic profile of her face.
I couldn’t resist the lure to stare at her and envision a repeat of what I’d done to her at the front door of the guest house two nights ago.
“And no matter which way I look, it comes back to one rental agreement. All the trails lead to this network, orchestrated by him.”
I furrowed my brow, only now realizing she actually had a name for me.
“Who?”
She shrugged. “I’ve never heard of him before.
I mean, I’ve never seen this name. When my father had me handling the ‘secret’ accounts, no real names were provided.
I like that. If I were ever to be a target or in trouble for being an accomplice like this, moving money around for syndicated crime families… ”
I set my hand on hers. She didn’t flinch, but she faced me with a worried frown.
“I’ve always been nervous about what I know. Not enough to incriminate anything, because I only see the numbers and accounts and the aliases or shell company labels, but…”
“Elena.” I kept my hand on hers, a paltry gesture of comfort. “You do understand there are risks with what you’re looking into.”
“Of course,” she agreed.
“And I won’t lie, you need to be warned that there are always consequences for knowing too much.”
She nodded, looking uneasy.
Being honest with her felt good. I wouldn’t lie to her and give her a false sense of security. Instead, I privately vowed that I would protect her. No matter what. She’d come to me from a man who mismanaged the Bratva finances. She wasn’t a Volkov or due any selective security detail.
But she wasn’t just an accountant, either.
“I know,” she said again. “That’s why I feel anxious about zeroing in on one name. One source for all these companies that link into a network.”
“What’s the name?” I asked, taking my hand off hers.
“Right there.” She pointed the cursor to highlight a field on a form. It looked more like a contract, but the context didn’t matter.
The name did.
A name I never imagined seeing again.
Not like this.
Blood raced through me, making my heart pump faster in an instant. My limbs were leaden, heavy and too cumbersome to move if I’d tried. I sat there, so still that it was as though I’d turned to stone.
As though I’d been hit with a train.
Crushed and on fire, crumbling apart but rattling to explode all at once.
Gregori?
The roar of my pulse was deafeningly loud as I stared at the highlighted field she’d selected.
Gregori Fyodorov V.
“Are you serious?”
It escaped my lips as a scorching whisper.
“What?” Elena volleyed her gaze between me and the laptop. “What do you mean? What’s?—”
She wisely shut up. Attuned to reading me this much, she had to see how absolutely enraged I was.
“Are you fucking serious ?” I shot to my feet, glaring at the screen.
“Adrik? What’s…” She bounced her panicked gaze back and forth again, watching me as my breaths grew more labored as anger consumed me, and the screen as if she couldn’t begin to comprehend what she’d done wrong.
She hadn’t.
She didn’t have a clue what that name meant. What it represented.
No. It has to be wrong.
It can’t be him.
He’s dead. He was killed in the explosion after he’d murdered my grandparents and almost killed my father.
“Adrik?” she asked again, backing up as if she were debating the need to rush out of the room.
“Shut up,” I growled. Pointing at the laptop, I shook my head. “You’re serious.”
She nodded, cringing as she watched me. Now , she’d see me as a monster, so livid and stunned like this. “That’s the name I was led to,” she said carefully.
Fury charged through me, and I damned her for having to fear me like this.
“Leave it here and get out.” I paced, needing to take this news to my brothers and cousins immediately. For years, over twenty years—two decades!—Uncle Gregori had been a stain on our past. A previous stain. He was dead . He had to be dead, killed as a side effect of his own crimes and malice.
But if he’s not…
If he’s still alive…
I dragged my hands through my hair and gripped it.
Fuck. Fucking fuck!
More than anyone else in the world, the news of Dmitri Volkov’s failing health would come as a godsend to his murderous younger brother.
Elena hadn’t left yet. She sat there, watching me with worry and confusion. And no small part of fear.
“Get out! Go!” I yelled, pointing at the door.
I had to dismiss her. I couldn’t afford to worry about her. I had no time to stress about whether I was scaring her and freaking her out. She mattered. In other circumstances, it would’ve bothered me greatly to be the cause of her feeling so cornered and threatened. She deserved better.
But not from me.
Not now and not like this.
“Go,” I repeated once more as I snatched my phone off the desk to call for a meeting.
I texted the group thread that consisted of my brothers and two cousins.
Adrik: Meet in the office. NOW.
By the time I pressed send , Elena had scurried out of the room, her hair swaying from side to side over her back and her skirt dancing around her slender thighs I wanted wrapped around my waist again.
Not now.
Not any time soon, either.
I couldn’t bank on her making my life seem fuller when she’d just dropped a bombshell on me, one that could make the future seem like a landmine of hellish danger.